Halloween 2 (DVD)

Halloween 2 is even less necessary than the brutally violent Halloween that Rob Zombie produced a couple of years ago. The thing that made the original Halloween so terrifying was that it was shocking. John Carpenter put an unexpected violence against a backdrop of perfect suburban families, so that when the brutal deaths finally hit home, even the audience were shocked by the sheer horror of it. Where he subtly framed the violence with an ominous presence, Zombie took it and clobbered his audience over the head with it. Save for the enlightening prologue that shows the childhood Michael Myers in a violent frenzy, his Halloween was a messy assault on the senses that ...  Read the complete review

note: also appears on my film review website, TheFilmBlogger.com, thanks! Some critics have been quick to dismiss Rob Zombie as a man with no talent as a filmmaker, and although Halloween 2 joins an increasingly disappointing résumé for the White Zombie rocker, he is better approached as a frustrating filmmaker rather than one without talent. House of 1000 Corpses was dreadful, Halloween was so-so, and Halloween 2 is pretty poor itself, but these films are all problematic in the same area - each film has a lacklustre script that undermines Zombie's considerable visual flair for sordidness and grime. His films are the sort that through sheer visual composition ...  Read the complete review